LINGUIST List 11.1948

Fri Sep 15 2000

Qs: Indeclinable Words, The Minimalist Program

Editor for this issue: Karen Milligan <karenlinguistlist.org>



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  • Mike Maxwell, Indeclinable words
  • Natascha Pomino, The Minimalist Program

    Message 1: Indeclinable words

     Date: Fri, 15 Sep 2000 10:14:02 -0400
    From: Mike Maxwell <mike_maxwellsil.org>
    Subject: Indeclinable words


    The term "indeclinable" is used in grammars to refer to words which cannot take any inflectional affixes. I am looking for a characterization of the kind of words which can be indeclinable. One obvious case is categories which do not take inflection. Conjunctions, prepositions and adverbs are often mentioned in this regard (e.g. in Latin grammars). English modal verbs would be another example, and I could imagine proper nouns behaving like this, although I have not run across that in grammars. The other common case of indeclinable words is loans, particularly unassimilated loan words. Most (all??) indeclinable nouns in Russian, Latvian, and Biblical Greek seem to fall under this category.

    Are there instances of indeclinable words in some language that do not fall into either of these two categories? If so, are there any other unusual characteristics of such words (perhaps their phonological makeup)? Can indeclinable words take derivational affixes, and if so is the output inflectable?

    A few things I am not looking for: words with suppletive forms pluralia tantum words ('pants', 'scissors') words with defective (partial) paradigms words which lack forms for semantic reasons (mass nouns in English, weather verbs) Rather, I'm looking for lexemes that do not take mark for inflection at all. The Latin cardinal numerals from quattour to centum might be one example (since the other numerals did inflect, with the partial exception of mille). (BTW, if anyone can shed some light on why these particular Latin numerals were indeclinable, I would appreciate it.)

    I will summarize for the list.

    Mike Maxwell SIL Mike_Maxwellsil.org

    Message 2: The Minimalist Program

     Date: Fri, 15 Sep 2000 23:58:44 +0100
    From: Natascha Pomino <pominolingrom.fu-berlin.de>
    Subject: The Minimalist Program


    Dear linguistlist-readers,

    I am looking for all kind of literature (books, papers etc.) about the Minimalist Program and Romance languages, especially Spanish, Italian and French but also Peripheral Romance. I would appreciate it a lot if somebody could give me some helpful information. Please write directly to me and I will post a summary to the list. Thank you in advance,

    Natascha Pomino